Table of Contents

ALMOND MILK. Parboil and peel your almonds, then put in cold water, then grind and soak in water in which onions have been cooked and strain through a sieve: then fry the onions, and add a little salt, and boil on the fire, then add the sops. And if you make almond milk for sick people, do not add onions, and in place of the onion water to soak the almonds as spoken of above, add and soak them in clean warm water and boil it, and do not add salt, but lots of sugar. And if you want to make it as a drink, strain through a sieve or through two pieces of cloth, and lots of sugar to drink it.

[HCR Field Notes]

Name: Elizabeth Branscum and Julia Tomasson

Date and Time: 

2021.[05].[05], [7]:[22][pm]

Location: Apartment Kitchen

Subject: Almond Milk with Onions

Boiled water for almonds and onions

Halved, peeled, then quartered red onion

Placed in boiling water for 7-10 min.

Boiled almonds for sixty seconds (I looked up ‘how to boil almonds’ and came up with instructions to blanch them, aka boil for exactly 60 seconds, with the promise that the skin would come right off but they wouldn’t be too mushy).

Removed and drained - the skins are already coming off as we wait for them to cool)

then began to skin (see video)

        While skinning almonds a brownish liquid comes out but when peeled almonds are placed in cold water it doesn’t appear to transfer with them - the water with peeled almonds is slightly murky but relatively clear overall, much more so than excess brown liquid. Boiled almonds are much softer than they were before but still somewhat tough. Still taste like almonds.

Onion water was accidentally discarded, AND we realized the onion was perhaps past its prime. Luckily Julia brought a backup onion, so we repeated the above steps for a yellow onion. Then drained water into a bowl and set aside.

***in rereading the recipe, we realized that ‘sops’ probably referred to bread. Initially Elizabeth had thought it might refer to the ground almond meat - in fact, there is no indication of what to do with the almonds themselves once ground, boiled, and strained. Elizabeth ran out and bought a loaf of crusty bread. We realized here, too, that this recipe (at least the way we are interpreting it) is meant to create a whole dish using all parts, not just the almond milk****

Onion smells STRONG while boiling - Julia notes it would be strong enough to cover up other possibly unpleasant smells in the early modern household

We chose to fry our onion in 15.0 g butter combined with sea salt and olive oil because that’s what was on hand. Justified to ourselves because it splits the difference between oil and butter for frying.

Julia drained almonds and began grinding in mortar and pestle. This proved really difficult and time consuming. The almonds are both hard and slippery/rubbery - they resist being crushed unless hit with just the right pressure at just the right spot. We have a food processor but didn’t want to try that yet. We tried smashing almonds under a glass mixing bowl, which does work - almonds seem to kind of split along seams, though if I try to crush too many at a time, they just get flattened - the edge of the bowl needs to be in play. Then we try using a wine bottle as a rolling pin which produces the best results, but almonds stick to label. Julia switches to crushing almonds under the bottom of the bottle, then with the flat of a knife - cuts herself slightly. Bandaid required.

Ultimately we resort back to crushing with the glass bowl. This can only crush a few almonds at a time but seems to work best - especially rolling the bottom rim of the bowl over the almonds in a circular motion. We ask ourselves again what an early modern person would have done to grind their almonds and wonder: 1) perhaps we should have boiled the almonds for longer; 2) perhaps early modern people were just physically stronger/better at grinding with a mortar and pestle. 3) Maybe they would have used their feet?

It is hard to describe the amount and pattern  of pressure that is most effective. I want to give up. The boiled almonds are rubbery and slippery making it difficult to grind. Quickly turn into a messy paste.

Finally, our hands hurt from the edge of the bowl pressing into them. We chose to make a final pass over with a knife. We added the resulting mixture to the onion water we had set aside and let it soak for perhaps 10 min. We then set cheesecloth over a large mixing bowl and poured the onion water/almond paste mixture through the cloth. Let cool for a bit, and squeezed excess liquid from the almond meat. There is no indication in the recipe what to do with the almonds themselves once squeezed out, so we ended up throwing them away, even though it’s hard to imagine that happening in an early modern household.

Removed onions from heat - we forgot to set a timer so not sure how long they were ‘frying’ for, but maybe 7-10 minutes. We were hoping they would get crispy, but they are mostly just brown. They smell delicious. Added a few shakes of sea salt. Covered with warm water and put back on heat. Boiled for 5 min.

Cubed loaf of crusty bread. Added almond milk to pan with onions and then added the bread cubes - they soaked up most of the liquid and ended up very, very soggy.

We were a little apprehensive to try this dish but we forgot to eat dinner so decided to go for it. Ultimately, it tasted like very bland, very soggy stuffing. Pretty much no almond flavor at all - it just tastes like onions and bread.

258.1 g almonds (raw, before cooking)

2nd batch:

Name: Elizabeth Branscum and Julia Tomasson

Date and Time: 

2021.[Month].[Day], [9]:[32][pm]

Location: apt kitchen

Subject: almond recipe for sick people

258.1 g raw almonds

Let’s boil the hell out of these almonds this time (in retrospect, we absolutely *want* them mushy).  5:00 min. Follow same procedure as above. It is even easier to skin the almonds.

We resorted to the food processor as almonds are still rubbery and difficult to crush. Pulsed on ‘grind’ for maybe 3 minutes. The resulting paste was much more finely ground than what we could manage by hand.

Next we used a rubber spatula to scrape the almond paste into a pot of clean warm water, which we then brought to a boil. As it boiled, the water w/almond paste began to look milkier and foamy - we exclaimed a couple of times that it really looked like almond milk!

After bringing it to a boil it very quickly began to boil over so we turned off the heat and let it sit for a minute. Foam began to crust a bit at the sides of the pot.

Then we realized we didn’t actually have sugar and stores are closed.

So we strained the almonds through a cheesecloth - the liquid was HOT. After being strained it smelled not unpleasant, kind of like an eggy custard. Then we poured it into mason jars and tried some. It tasted pretty mild, I thought a little watery, Julia has more experience with store-bought almond milk and said it tasted pretty much like unsweetened almond milk that she buys. We then added some ice cubes and a tiny bit of vanilla extract which definitely improved the taste.

Conclusion: very high effort, incredibly low yield, too depressing to calculate.

Name: (Also the name of your working partner)

Date and Time: 

2021.[Month].[Day], [hh]:[mm][am/pm]

Location:

Subject:

Name: (Also the name of your working partner)

Date and Time: 

2021.[Month].[Day], [hh]:[mm][am/pm]

Location:

Subject: